Participant Profiles

Who are our alumni?

Encounter attracts talented, estab­lished, and rising Jewish leaders from a stag­gering range of polit­ical orien­ta­tions, reli­gious back­grounds and profes­sional spheres. Encounter’s past partic­i­pants range from national-religious right to secular-left and serve commu­ni­ties across North America as well as in Israel, Europe, and Australia.

About 80% of our past partic­i­pants are 20– to 30-something emerging Jewish leaders– Jewish educa­tors, young communal leaders, rabbis-in-training from every semi­nary and several Orthodox yeshivot. From this demo­graphic, we have waiting lists for every trip.

Participant Profiles

Encounter alumna Alisa Doctoroff is the Chair of the UJA-Federation in NY and the imme­diate past pres­i­dent of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan. Doctoroff serves on the Boards of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Mechon Hadar and Moving Traditions. Read more about her Encounter expe­ri­ence: “Now I am more knowl­edge­able about the divi­sions that exist, and I want to help heal those divi­sions.”

“I joined the Israeli army for a variety of reasons; the primary reason being Zionism. [My] love for Israel was never a super­fi­cial love; never a love that went skin deep. Part of my love for Israel means under­standing the nature of the conflict and the complex­i­ties of it and when people are hurt by it, under­standing what Israel’s respon­si­bility is in causing that hurt. For me going on Encounter was an intensely Zionist expe­ri­ence.”

“Encounter is making me a better rabbi and a better teacher. Thanks to Encounter, I was able to model an approach for my students that balances a love for Israel while recog­nizing Israel’s mistakes. It was a perspec­tive that they needed to hear.”

“I was chal­lenged to look at the sepa­ra­tion wall in Bethlehem and seek balance – to under­stand its profound impact on the lives and liveli­hood of Palestinians even as I under­stood its role in preventing suicide attacks against Israelis. It was powerful to learn how hard it is to listen without shut­ting down, closing off and getting defen­sive.”

Lear is the founder of the “Challenge of Peace” program of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, a program that has orga­nized more than 1000 presen­ta­tions in churches and commu­nity groups about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lear has also served in various lead­er­ship capac­i­ties within the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and the JCRC, and is a strong supporter of AIPAC and the Israel Project. On Encounter, Lear learned that, “Palestinians are also split about the course of action,” and says, “Independent of their govern­ments, people are people; that’s the beauty of it.” He also cites “active listening” as an infor­ma­tive expe­ri­ence, “Not just listening for the sake of refuting, but really making sure that my posi­tions take into account the other side.”